Assemblyman John Wisniewski / Asbury Park Press file photo

by Bob Jordan, The Asbury Park (N.J.) Press

by Bob Jordan, The Asbury Park (N.J.) Press

TRENTON, N.J. - Democrats leading the investigation by lawmakers into the George Washington Bridge scandal are fending off pressure from supporters of Republican Gov. Chris Christie and nudges from members of their own party to wrap up the probe after six months on the job.

Instead, Chairman John Wisniewski said the New Jersey Legislative Select Committee on Investigation will return from a short break next week and hold at least four meetings in July.

The committee has a list of 13 potential witnesses, including Christie's former chief counsel, Charles McKenna, and his top political strategist, Michael DuHaime.

Wisniewski said the seven hours of testimony earlier this month from Kevin O'Dowd, Christie's chief of staff, was convincing that there is more to look at.

O'Dowd told lawmakers he asked few questions and only made minimal effort to find out why the lane closings occurred last September and who gave the orders.

"Even assuming the best-case scenario for why administration members did what they did, it shows an administration overall that does not have any managerial control over what's going on and no accountability," said Wisniewski, a Middlesex County assemblyman.

Republicans have pushed back. Two months ago, four GOP members of the panel headed by Wisniewski and Sen. Loretta Weinberg, D-Bergen, complained that leadership was withholding information, and one member said the group discussed walking away from the investigation.

GOP Assembly Leader Jon Bramnick said conducting 13 more interviews would be excessive, though Wisniewski said it's possible not all of the potential witnesses will be called.

"This is the problem when politicians investigate politicians. It never ends," Bramnick said.

Bramnick, noting that Wisniewski is the former chairman of the New Jersey Democratic State Committee, questioned whether Wisniewski "can be fair when investigating Gov. Christie, who is one of the most popular Republicans in the nation."

Wisniewski said Bramnick's remarks were predictable.

"They're going to continue with the narrative of we know enough, it's time to move on, we ought to be legislating, and so on. But what we've seen during the investigation, each time we turn over a stone, we look underneath and see two more stones that need to be turned over," Wisniewski said. "I'm not sure if the fact that the governor is popular that it makes doing something wrong suddenly right. If the actions are inappropriate, they're inappropriate, and it doesn't matter what his popularity is."

But even fellow Democrats in the Senate appeared antsy when they joined Republicans in unanimously passing a bill last week that would subject the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the George Washington Bridge, to requirements of the Open Public Records Act of New Jersey or the Freedom of Information Law of New York.

In the Assembly, the bill has been referred to the Transportation Committee, also headed by Wisniewski. He hasn't scheduled a hearing on it yet.

"I'm concerned that passage of that legislation creates the argument for some that reforms are in place and the work is done," Wisniewski said. "The transparency legislation is important but meaningless if the way the Port Authority is run is not changed. It's like giving the fox the transparency rules for the henhouse. What we have are well-intended transparency rules to be administered by the same agency that stonewalled the Transportation Committee when we asked for documents on the toll increase. They just didn't respond. The fundamental fix has to be a governance fix. Until that happens, a transparency fix is meaningless."